In primary school, we went on a Christmas trip to the cinema as a treat. I chose to watch ‘The Polar Express’ (2004) instead of ‘Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events’ (2004) and I have regretted that decision ever since. Mostly because I went on to really enjoy ‘Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events’ and I have genuinely no memory of ‘The Polar Express’ at all. It might have actually been a better film all these years and I would never know. I have seen it and yet I would never know. Until now. This moment could be quite cathartic for me as I can finally see if I actually made the correct decision all those years ago. The film follows an unnamed Hero Boy (Tom Hanks/Daryl Sabara) who is starting to stop believing in Santa. One Christmas Eve when his faith has almost completely vanished the Polar Express appears outside his house to take him to the North Pole and rebuild his faith in the magic of Christmas.
It turns out I was right all these years. This movie fucking sucks, and I made the wrong decision when I chose to see it in cinemas. To be fair to me, the film probably looked better sixteen years ago, but it has aged like the finest of milks. I would hazard a guess that the animation at the time was quite an achievement, but now it is some truly uncanny valley bullshit which is more terrifying than it is impressive. I am not kidding; this film is one of the scariest films I have seen in a long time due to the uncanny valley nature of it. The fact that it proceeds Robert Zemeckis’s version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ (2009) by five years and I thought that film looked terrifying you can probably imagine how scary this one is to look at. It isn’t all bad to be fair. There are a few moments where it does look pretty, and the lighting in the film is great, with one moment in particular where the light is coming through the train windows and is broken up by steam and shadow that looks really nice. But it is mostly horrendous to look at. The best part of this film is undeniably Tom Hanks who plays pretty much every character going. That isn’t a lie either, point at an adult character and it will be played by Tom Hanks. And, of course, he is great in all of them. There is just something about that man where he is just a gem and lifts pretty much any film, he is in. Unfortunately, he is surrounded by everyone else. Most of the kids do a fine job, to be honest, but there is one who might just be my least favourite character in film history. And that would be the Know-It-All played by Eddie Deezen. You know, Eugene from ‘Grease’ (1978) and the incredible ‘Grease 2’ (1982). Imagine that character, with that voice, pitched up to be more childlike and being obnoxious as hell. Grating doesn’t even begin to describe this character.
I can tell that I dislike a film when I start to pick holes in it rather than buy into what is happening. I started doing that quite early for this film, in fact, I have the minute that I became aware I wasn’t enjoying myself. That was the eighteenth minute when I audibly exclaimed to no one (because I am sat alone in my room) that ‘this is genuinely shit’. Early doors then. From there it only got worse. There is a scene in this film where the conductor and a young girl take a cup of hot chocolate to a young boy he is sitting alone in a separate carriage and the girl accidentally leaves her ticket on the seat. There is no indication that she isn’t coming back to the carriage where she can retrieve the ticket, but our Hero Boy in his infinite wisdom decides that she needs it now and drops it off the train, for the sole purpose of having an excuse to show off the technology as we follow this ticket on its journey through the wilderness and back onto the train. There is another moment where all the kids are in the North Pole and Santa appears to set off on his journey. We get a POV of hero boy as he tries to see Santa and, although his vision is obscured you can clearly see Santa is there. But our Hero Boy in his infinite wisdom starts screaming that he can’t see him. Yes, you can you lying prick. Like I say, tiny moments in the film that are really insignificant but as I was already annoyed, I was watching this film they pissed me off maybe more than they should. This whole film effectively feels like an excuse for set pieces rather than having an engaging narrative, and by set pieces, I mean rollercoaster simulators. Literally, almost every time the film needs an action scene it just makes a vehicle (usually but not always a train) go fast. “How fun,” I say with absolutely no sarcasm. Also, little thing, did this film rip off the theme from ‘Elf’ (2003)? Seriously give them both a listen and the beginning of each theme is almost exactly the same. So, I have bashed this film endlessly, but it almost completely flipped itself around. There is one moment where this could have gone from being crap to being incredible. There is a scene where the start on top of the huge tree in the North Pole falls off and almost impales an elf through the face. If the film had been this dodgy kid’s film and for sixty minutes and then thrown that in, I would have loved it. But no, they bottled it because apparently “kids need to be sheltered these days and we shouldn’t show sharp objects going impaling elves to children”. This film sucks.
I’m not sure I can write a conclusion for this film longer than ‘it is shit’. I don’t have much else to say about it. It looks terrible, is the same set-piece over and over, and has one of the most annoying characters in film history. Maybe my hatred does come from a deep-lying grudge I hold against it because of a poor decision I made at the age of eight. Interesting to think about. Regardless the film is crap and I’ll never be watching it again. The most positive thing I can say about it is that this is the most fun I have had writing a review in some time.
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